Pay And Employment Equity: Govt Priorities 08/09

Notes for speech delivered to the
third Pay and Employment Equity Forum by Cabinet Minister
Maryan Street on behalf of Labour Minister Trevor Mallard at
the National Library Auditorium.

Welcome to the third
Pay and Employment Equity Forum. I’m delighted to be here
to open the forum in place of the Minister of Labour. In
fact given my own involvement with pay equity matters over
the last 30 years, I am delighted to be here!

I want to
talk about where we are with the government’s plan of
action and also look at our priorities for this year.

In
May 2004, the government made a significant commitment to
pay and employment equity in its launch of the Pay and
Employment Equity Plan of Action - a systematic and
comprehensive plan to address major employment issues for
women: issues that can, directly or indirectly, affect both
women and men.

I want to reaffirm the government’s
commitment to that plan. We want to see that remuneration,
job choice and job opportunities are not affected by a
person’s gender. There are good reasons for that. Pay and
employment equity is about fairness and human rights – but
there are sound economic and social reasons for our
commitment too.

Pay and employment equity is an important
part of the government’s broader economic agenda.
Research indicates that addressing gender inequities in the
workplace can contribute to maximising our skill and
knowledge pool. This can increase productivity, contribute
to job satisfaction and to employee retention.

This has
benefits for women individually and for New Zealand
generally.

I see three major priorities for pay and
employment equity this year.

The first priority is
maintaining momentum and continuing to build capability in
phase one – the Public Service, public health and public
education sectors.

Pay and employment equity reviews are
well-advanced in these sectors and we should be proud of
progress made. The reviews are critical to identifying and
removing the barriers to employment equity.

All 39 public
service departments, the 21 district health boards and the
public school sector will complete the pay and employment
equity process this year. Reviews are underway in the
tertiary education sector and kindergartens will also
commence theirs this year.

We need to maintain that
momentum to complete phase one and build a significant
resource bank of knowledge and expertise for the longer
term.

As reviews are completed in phase one organisations,
the focus needs to shift to implementing response
plans.

The bipartite approach that underpins pay and
employment equity is proving to be a key factor in success
and provides a model for social partnership in both policy
and implementation.

The second priority this year is
accelerating progress in pay investigations:

This is the
second arm of the plan, the occupational and labour market
part. It is about the re-valuing of women-dominated
occupations that may be under-valued.

It involves
conducting pay investigations, seeking remedial pay
settlements, if warranted, and bargaining for appropriate
rates. This part of the plan is not yet fully off the
ground.

Special education support workers at the Ministry
of Education will be the first occupational group to
undertake a pay investigation. Child Youth and Family
Services will also be conducting a pay investigation of
social workers.

They will provide a model for future pay
investigations. This has historic significance for pay
equity. Both are joint employer/union initiatives and I
congratulate all those involved.

More concerted progress
in pay investigations and remedial pay settlements will mean
ensuring that organisations know what the new process is and
how to do it. This forum will contribute to that.

It will
mean public sector organisations recognising that budget
bids, accompanied by sound business cases, may need to go
forward to cover pay and employment equity remedial pay
settlements. That is part of the government’s plan of
action.

The third priority is getting pay and employment
equity underway in phase two organisations:

Since the
last forum, government has decided to lead and encourage
implementing the plan in phase two organisations: that is
Crown entities and the local government sector. I
congratulate those local government authorities and Crown
research institutes that are already planning reviews, in
partnership with unions.

This third priority includes the
extension of pay and employment equity to workers involved
in government-funded outsourced services in parts of the
public health sector.

This will mean that many vulnerable
workers involved in providing public health services will
benefit from pay and employment equity also. Extending the
policy to other parts of the outsourced workforce will be
considered following a report to Cabinet in 2009.

In
concluding, I want to note that government recognised in
2004 that pay and employment equity could take longer than
five years. The plan of action seeks longer-term,
sustainable change. It aims to mainstream pay and employment
equity into existing management practices, resources,
employment relations and whole-of-government activities.

This is happening and that longer-term commitment is
fundamental to government policy.

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